Solid. - 81%

This album is definitely a success. Unlike a lot of the similar bands, Windir steps away from a generic, boring style of tremolo picking, blast beats and growls and instead they incorporate melodic passages into their writing style, and create a real atmosphere without having to sounds like they recorded their music in a trashcan.

Starting off with one of my favourite Windir tracks, Todewalzer, which uses all of their song writing ability and creates an atmospheric, heavy piece of material that uses a folky, waltzy style as its backdrop. The album progresses into 1184, which is the title track, and that is another success with a slow introduction which progresses into a frantic piece of metal. Dance of Mortal Lust is my least favourite track on the album, it doesn’t really strive to meet any particular purpose – other than to be a rather standard track. The Spiritlord and Heidra, are great tracks – almost thrashy and not boring at all. There is some brilliant soloing and the interludes are very well thought out so the track does not fall in to the generic brain obliteration of so many bands. Destroy and Black New Age are for the most part cut from the same cloth as Dance of Mortal Lust, but use some effects and generate a bit of variety which gives them the edge over that track. Journey to the End is a slower track which ends the album on a high note.

Windir have tried to take the black metal scene with this album and others, which can get boring at times and attempted to do something different. 1184 is a solid album that is worthy of purchase.